I am attempting to create a website. I need a hosting company. My website needs to play audio samples like iTunes and it needs a map locator. Currently I just want to build an minimum viable product to test the market for my idea. However, I want to choose a hosting company I can grow with. Given the audio feature I need are there hosting companies that are better for this feature or is space, space? I also need a database (I am told a cms) for users to submit information re: their location? I understand products like joomla, drupal, and wordpress would do this. What features would a hosting company need so that I can incorporate this on my site? As of yet I do not know the Programs my website will need in the future. Given the criteria I listed above what are the features I would need in hosting company to support and grow those above features? Also, can u recommend sow hosting sites- fast loading, great customer service, own their servers (no resellers), minimal downtime.

What you are asking for is pretty standard for any good hosting—database, ability to run a CMS etc. The most common hosting runs on Apache, which gives you better options, IMO. It might be worth getting a VPS, which gives you more room to move and experiment. If you want something fast loading, it's best to go for hosting based in your own locality, as you will get a faster connection that way. A VPS will also give you a better chance of fast loading times, as you will not be competing with so many other sites as you are on standard shared hosting.

Thank you! Just starting out, the website is free w/ hopefully advertising revenue, VPS is too extravagant right now. How do I find hosting sites based in New York/East Coast? Does the fact I am featuring music samples affect my hosting decisions? Is that only a bandwidth concern? Or is it something else?

You could Google it, but really, anything in the US will be fine for you. Much of the best hosting worldwide is in the US, and it really doesn't matter where in the country the server is. So just look for a good quality US web host ... and there are many of those.

Does the fact I am featuring music samples affect my hosting decisions? Is that only a bandwidth concern? Or is it something else?

It's not an issue, really. Yes, it's basically a bandwidth issue, so if you will have big downloads, make sure you pack in a decent bandwidth allowance.

An alternative—and a good one to consider—is to get separate hosting for your media files. Quite a few companies offer what's sometimes called a CDN (content delivery network). Examples are Amazon Web Services and Rackspace Cloud. I have a Rackspace cloud account, and if I have big files like videos, I put them on there and link to them from my website. So when someone clicks a video link on my site, the video is actually loaded in from the Rackspace site. The advantges are that 1) you pay less per download and 2) the files download faster, because a CDN like that is optimized for fast delivery.

If you told us how much you wanted to invest in your project, it would be easier to recommend a certain type of product. There are many kinds of web hosting products like shared hosting, VPSes, dedicated servers, and cloud-based versions of these...